Critical Humility: An approach for improving interpersonal relationships
by Andrew Lee, Teacher and Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Germantown Friends School
Recently, I texted one of my colleagues something that I felt was personal and showed vulnerability. They did not respond. My immediate reaction was indignation and frustration: “How could they just leave me hanging?” I was tempted to text back something incendiary but thought I should sleep on it.
When I woke up the next day, my head was clearer and I was in a more curious mood. I remembered my colleague was usually responsive and empathetic. I wondered if they had been particularly busy. Then I sought them out for a conversation. It turns out that they had been extremely busy and were shocked to find out that they had neglected to respond to my text message. The face to face conversation helped resolve the lingering negative feelings I had for my colleague.
Working in a school means interacting with dozens or possibly hundreds of students, colleagues, parents, and other people every week. With so many interpersonal interactions, conflicts and misunderstandings are bound to occur. To quote Jennifer Gonzalez of the Cult of Pedagogy website: “[Conflicts] disrupt instructional time, interfere with student understanding, escalate into major power struggles that lead to serious disciplinary action, and that’s just the students. Among the adults in the building, unresolved disagreements create all kinds of inter-staff drama, lead to poor job satisfaction, and can ultimately end in teachers leaving their jobs.”
To put it mildly, it’s really important for us to grow in our ability to manage interpersonal connections with our students and colleagues. To this end, one framework that I’ve found helpful is Critical Humility. Critical Humility (CH) is an approach conceived by the European-American Collaborative Challenging Whiteness (ECCW) as a method for white people to confront each other constructively around statements about race they find problematic. However, its essential core can be applied to any kind of misunderstanding or conflict in communication.
The essence of CH is to practice keeping your mind in inquiry mode towards people who have said things that have rubbed you the wrong way. An example provided by an ECCW workshop run at the White Privilege Conference elucidates one way CH works. The workshop had a skit that featured two European American (white) teachers, Victoria and Ann, discussing an African American student (Leroy, not in the skit), with two actors playing the teachers’ inner voices. Victoria tells Ann she is concerned about Leroy’s ability to stay in her program; Ann’s inner voice goes “oooh no… that’s where this is headed….sounds to me like LeRoy is right on target, but she just doesn’t get it.” The skit paints a picture of one white colleague silently judging another. However, then it pivots to Ann thinking: “Oh! Look at me… I’m doing to Victoria exactly what she did to LeRoy…She felt superior to him. I feel superior to her. Maybe I’m not really listening to her.” Ann then shifts the conversation by asking Victoria more in depth questions to try and really understand where she is coming from, pausing to take deep breaths every time Victoria says something that offends her. The skit ends with the two colleagues having gained a better understanding of each other’s perspectives.
It is not easy to discipline the mind to slow down and open up, to humbly recognize one might not know where the other person is coming from, and to examine the situation critically in order to ask the right questions of that other person. That is the core of Critical Humility and using such an approach can have great benefits for one’s interpersonal relationships and overall mental health.
Friends, imagine a (real or fictional) conversation you have had with a student or colleague that made you feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or upset. How did you respond? Did you ignore it? Did you confront that person emotionally? Or did you use an approach similar to Critical Humility? How might you use Critical Humility to strengthen your relationships?
1 https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/magic-of-validation/
2 Read more about the skit and about Critical Humility here.
Andrew Lee is the Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and a History teacher at Germantown Friends School. His interests include applying research on the science of learning to improve teaching and relationships between teachers and students.
